Efficient and low-cost characterization of cell lines is of great interest due to applications in research, clinical, and pharmaceutical settings. In research and clinical settings, characterization of cellular responses from cell populations of patients or donors can provide insight into the effects of applied experimental conditions. With regard to pharmaceutical applications, characterization of cellular responses to a new drug in preclinical testing, at individual and population levels, can provide insight into the effectiveness of the new drug or detrimental effects of the new drug. In particular, in recent years, there has been significant progress in using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and other cell types for modeling of human disease. For instance, somatic cells can be reprogrammed into a pluripotent state and then differentiated into specific cell types for disease modeling. Such disease-in-dish models can provide insight into studying cellular disease mechanisms and responses to drugs, with the goal of treating a disease. However, characterization in an efficient and low-cost manner has not been successfully achieved. Furthermore, standardization in the evaluation of iPSC cultures and other types of cell cultures is often limited by variations in sensitivity to culture conditions attributed to different cell types. Appropriate methods and systems for evaluating iPSC cultures and other cell cultures should be capable of: characterizing cultures at a distribution of time points, minimally affecting the cell cultures, and handling variations in cell line stability and culture conditions (e.g., culture density, media composition, reagent lot variability, user technique).
Thus, there is a need in the sample imaging field to create a new and useful method and system for characterizing cell populations. This invention provides such a useful method and system.